Contents

Lore

Biography

Story

Deadly and precise, Xayah is a vastayan revolutionary waging a personal war to save her people. She uses her speed, guile, and razor-sharp feather blades to cut down anyone who stands in her way. Xayah fights alongside her partner and lover, Rakan, to protect their dwindling tribe, and restore their race to her vision of its former glory.

As a child, Xayah loved listening to her father sing the ancient folk-hymns about vastayan heroes. The haunting melodies transported her to a long-forgotten time, when the spirit realm danced freely throughout the physical world. But, with every new generation, humans encroached further into the Lhotlan tribelands, disrupting the raw, chaotic essence of Ionia for their own purposes. Unwilling to stand by and watch her kind fade, Xayah ignored the decrees of her people and set out to reason with the humans.

She ventured into villages beyond her secluded tribal home, and learned how little she knew of the outside world. A group of poverty-stricken villagers mobbed her, some of them trying to steal her feathers as priceless trophies. Others were fearful of her strange appearance and summoned the authorities, forcing her to defend herself. Xayah’s attackers were soon taught the dangers of getting in her way, as she skewered them with her lethal quills.

Dismayed, she returned to her home, only to discover that her tribe, including her father, was missing without a trace. An ancient vastayan temple had been tainted by unnatural shadow magic, disrupting its connection to the spirit realm. Xayah destroyed the temple in order to dispel the corruption. Almost instantly, magic flowed back into the surrounding lands. It was a beautiful sight, but her tribe was still nowhere to be found.

After years spent flitting in and out of the most fortified strongholds and leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, she became known as “The Violet Raven.” She lived alone, focused only on the next mission, and the next step toward freedom for her kind.

But then she met another vastayan who would change her life forever. As she entered the remote mountain town of Vlonqo in search of a stolen vastayan artifact, she was struck by the strange sight of a braying crowd of excitable humans. Onstage before them stood a preening, flamboyant performer, a veritable golden peacock, who sang old vastayan songs for his captivated audience. As he finished his show with a dazzling array of cheap tricks—as Xayah saw them—the crowd erupted and chanted his name: “Rakan.” He took a theatrical bow. She dismissed him as a buffoon.

Xayah willed herself to ignore the entertainer, and completed her mission. She made her escape, which she had to admit had become far easier thanks to the buffoon’s distraction of Vlonqo’s inhabitants.

Despite vowing never to see this “Rakan” again, she couldn’t seem to get him off her mind. It was a strange and complicated feeling; there was a lightness to his spirit that she found aggravatingly alluring.

As she left town, Xayah was preoccupied by these strange thoughts, leaving her momentarily distracted to an ambush from a group of mercenaries. She had been expecting a fight, so she was glad to get her feathers bloody. A good brawl seemed the perfect antidote for useless diversions and unwanted feelings.

That was when Rakan made his grand entrance.

Xayah insisted she didn’t need the swaggering vastayan’s help. Rakan insisted he didn’t care—he just didn’t want to miss the party. Through the course of the fight, Rakan proved an unorthodox, but surprisingly dauntless and effective, ally. He leapt and pirouetted through the attackers who couldn’t take their eyes off him, providing Xayah ample time to strike them down with devastating accuracy.

In spite of her protestations, Rakan continued to follow Xayah. Over time, she grew to welcome his company and—though she was initially loath to admit it—the world didn’t feel so broken and lonely. They became inseparable, with her passion for the vastayan cause infecting the showboating battle-dancer. She has adapted to his free-spirited ways, utilizing the chaos Rakan creates as perfectly timed distractions. Together, they fight to release Ionia’s abundant flow of magic so that the vastaya might thrive once again.

He’s not listening. He’s fixated on his own golden feathers—as if they’d changed from when he cleaned them this morning. I’m going to have to repeat the plan. Although, thinking it over again, it probably was too complicated for a rescue mission. Simple is better.

“They will kill me if they catch me,” I tell him.

“Who?!” He looks ready to kill at the thought of anyone harming me.

“The guards,” I say. “It’s always guards.”

“Then I’ll distract them!” He puffs his chest out. “When?”

“Look for a green flash before the sun sets. Then draw the guards away from the western walls while I run along the ramparts to the cells.”

“I put on a show the moment the sun sets,” he says like it was his idea. “Where do we meet?”

“At the gate. I’ll throw a golden blade into the sky. But you have to be there in ten breaths.” I pull one of his feathers from his cloak. It’s warm on my fingers. A memory floods back of me lying in his arms by the Aphae Waterfall. The sun filtering through the leaves, catching the edges of our feathers as they lay atop each other. That was a lovely day.

“I will be at the gate the moment you throw the blade,” he swears.

I take his hand in mine and lean close. “I know.”

That smug, confident grin cracks his face. I want to slap him. Or kiss him. Or both.

“Now, darling—if I were you, I would stay behind the cover of the tree line, so you’re not spotted.”

Our embrace is so warm I wish it would last all night. But the sun is dangerously close to the horizon, and our esteemed consul isn’t going to escape a dungeon guarded by a horde of shadow acolytes on his own.

Rakan tells me to be careful as he wanders away, looking at the sky. Every time he leaves, my heart sinks. I’m sure it won’t be the last time I see him. Although, one day, it might.

“Remember, my heartfire,” I whisper after him. “Sunset.”

I dart in between the fortress’ parapets unseen. Years of avoiding the stares of humans taught me their many blind spots.

Six acolytes guard the gate leading to the dungeons. They carry double-firing crossbows, swords tucked in their belts, and who-knows-what-else in the pouches fastened around their waists. I slink along the inner wall behind them to get within striking distance. I pluck five of my feathers and stack them neatly in my palm, holding them in place between my index finger and thumb, ready to send them flying.

There’s a noise from outside the walls. The crash of a gong. Shouts. Confused men. It has to be Rakan.

The prison guards hear it, too. Worry chokes my heart. I hope my love is okay. I know he’s going to be okay. He’d better be okay, or I will force a necromancer to resurrect him so I can murder him myself. He knows I’ll do that, too. I’ll figure it out.

The guards are distracted from their posts. He’s early, but it’s perfect timing. I can get in without needing to fell a single one of them.

I almost reach the dungeon door, when I see another guard climb the parapet and take deadly aim with his rifle. Nobody aims anything at my Rakan. I’ll have the still-beating heart of anyone who dares to harm as much as one of his feathers. It’ll make a cute beating-heart necklace.

I stop. The prisoners won’t be going anywhere. I’ve got time to turn this guard into a sieve.

I leap back toward the parapet. The first feather I throw slices off the barrel of the gun. It clatters loudly to the floor. The rest slice through his chest. He drops like a bag of turnips.

“Intruder!” one of the guards at the gate shouts.

I duck and roll as crossbow bolts ping off the stone wall behind me, or stab into the wooden posts. Staying low, I race straight toward the acolytes who are fanning out to get better angles. I leap. They shoot where they think gravity will take me, instead of where I am: hovering in the air.

I throw another handful of feathers, shaping them into blades mid-flight.

Five of the guards drop, my quills sticking out of their chests. The remaining acolyte narrows his eyes and squares his shoulders, ready to fight. His sword is out before my feet touch the ground.

“Your soul will serve me forever,” he grunts. I can feel the shadow magic bound up in his blade, the essence of every life it has taken.

I laugh. “I killed more people in the last twenty paces than you have in your entire life.”

The acolyte hesitates before slashing wildly in my direction. His little sword leaves wavering trails of darkness. I don’t have time for this, the sun is setting. I turn my back.

With a snap of my fingers, my quills tear free of the corpses behind the acolyte, and fly back toward me.

I hear the sword clang to the floor a moment before the dull thud of his body. I’m sure the Order of the Shadow will find some way to harness these men’s souls into a slingshot or something. I don’t really know how these guys work, but good on them for being so economical. One shouldn’t waste life essence.

I take Rakan’s feather and launch it high into the air. It hangs in the sky, a golden message that should turn some heads. But there’s only one who knows what it means.

Meanwhile, I have a date in the dungeons with the consul.

He looks terrible sitting in a cage. Emaciated. Weak. Beaten. He doesn’t look up, figuring me for one of the guards. He and his mate are Sodjoko, but his entourage are vastaya from other tribes. Their harrowed eyes thank me more than their tongues. They know as well as I that this is no time for gratitude. We’re not out of the fortress yet.

As I lead the prisoners toward the eastern gate, I’m perplexed by the appalling lack of guards. Nearly every post is deserted. Isn’t this supposed to be a fortress? Who makes their schedules?

We round past the armory and the barracks. There’s the gate. Looks like Rakan found the guards. Dozens of them. They’re surrounding him. My feathers bristle. Heartbeat necklace, here I come!

Rakan reaches us. His smile turns from confident to bemused as he speaks with the consul. Akunir is one of my father’s oldest friends, and the most important of our ambassadors. I have much to discuss with him once we’re out of this.

“All of you, run for the tree line,” I command.

They’re panicked, but thankfully Rakan took out the riflemen. More of us will survive crossing the field. “Run!” I yell.

DAMAGE : While Deadly Plumage is active on both Xayah and Rakan, when one of them basic attacks an enemy, [both of their Deadly Plumages strike that enemy]⇒ only their own Deadly Plumage strikes that enemy

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